Gargantua and Pantagruel eBook

Chapter 2.XXVIII.

How Pantagruel got the victory very strangely over
the Dipsodes and the Giants.

After all this talk, Pantagruel took the prisoner
to him and sent him away, saying, Go thou unto thy
king in his camp, and tell him tidings of what thou
hast seen, and let him resolve to feast me to-morrow
about noon; for, as soon as my galleys shall come,
which will be to-morrow at furthest, I will prove
unto him by eighteen hundred thousand fighting-men
and seven thousand giants, all of them greater than
I am, that he hath done foolishly and against reason
thus to invade my country. Wherein Pantagruel
feigned that he had an army at sea. But the
prisoner answered that he would yield himself to be
his slave, and that he was content never to return
to his own people, but rather with Pantagruel to fight
against them, and for God’s sake besought him
that he might be permitted so to do. Whereunto
Pantagruel would not give consent, but commanded him
to depart thence speedily and begone as he had told
him, and to that effect gave him a boxful of euphorbium,
together with some grains of the black chameleon thistle,
steeped into aqua vitae, and made up into the condiment
of a wet sucket, commanding him to carry it to his
king, and to say unto him, that if he were able to
eat one ounce of that without drinking after it, he
might then be able to resist him without any fear or
apprehension of danger.

The prisoner then besought him with joined hands that
in the hour of the battle he would have compassion
upon him. Whereat Pantagruel said unto him,
After that thou hast delivered all unto the king, put
thy whole confidence in God, and he will not forsake
thee; because, although for my part I be mighty, as
thou mayst see, and have an infinite number of men
in arms, I do nevertheless trust neither in my force
nor in mine industry, but all my confidence is in
God my protector, who doth never forsake those that
in him do put their trust and confidence. This
done, the prisoner requested him that he would afford
him some reasonable composition for his ransom.
To which Pantagruel answered, that his end was not
to rob nor ransom men, but to enrich them and reduce
them to total liberty. Go thy way, said he,
in the peace of the living God, and never follow evil
company, lest some mischief befall thee. The
prisoner being gone, Pantagruel said to his men, Gentlemen,
I have made this prisoner believe that we have an
army at sea; as also that we will not assault them
till to-morrow at noon, to the end that they, doubting
of the great arrival of our men, may spend this night
in providing and strengthening themselves, but in
the meantime my intention is that we charge them about
the hour of the first sleep.